Group Workshops

WORKING WITH MODELING AGENCIES FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP

Playtime | Brittany. D3/24-70mm f/2.8 1/200th f/4.0 ISO 200.

Orange. Erica. D3/24-70mm.

In today’s competitive environment, fashion photographers need good models to build a quality portfolio that impresses potential clients. As such, modeling agencies are “gatekeepers” that can make or break a photographer’s career. Therefore learning how to become “agency-approved” and subsequently how to work with Modeling Agencies effectively is paramount to that success.

-If you’re still building your portfolio and trying to get your foot in the door with agencies (particularly in the competitive LA environment), this workshop is for you.
-If you’re trying to improve your existing body of work, this workshop is for you.
-If you’re trying to build a paid-relationship with agencies, this workshop is also for you.

This workshop covers the following topics:
-What agencies are looking for in a photographer and a portfolio.
-How to approach modeling agencies
-Portfolio review
-Creating the “agency look” in capture (natural light and strobes)
-Creating the “agency look” in post
-Photographer/agency/model interaction
-Shooting without a studio

This will be a two-day event that will feature insight from agency models and will highlight many of the lighting setups and post-processing techniques that I employ for my own work.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from becoming a full-time fashion photographer it’s that the photography is the easy part. No one ever tells you how hard it is to find work, where to find work, how to pay the bills, what red-tape you’ll face and what hoops you’ll jump through to make it all work.

By combining business education (MBA, MA Psychology, BA Economics) with actual work experience in fashion photography, I’ve developed a 2-day course for serious fashion photographers that want to break into the fashion photography business.

On Day 1 we’ll examine the fundamentals of the business-side of fashion photography and cover topics such as:

There are so many workshops out there that teach you lighting and shooting, but so few of them actually teach you the business-side of fashion photography. I’ll be using my work experiences to demonstrate the successes and failures I’ve encountered in my journey. My goal is to navigate you through the pitfalls of becoming a professional fashion photographer so you can succeed!

BEAUTY PHOTOGRAPHY: LIGHTING-CAPTURE-POST

Emote | Jordan. D3/24-70mm f/2.8G, 1/200th, f/11, ISO200.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But what if you could spontaneously create beauty and achieve consistent results via makeup, lighting, capture, and post-processing?

In LUCIMA’s Beauty Photography: Lighting-Capture-Post, photographers will explore the different elements of producing such beauty shoots from prep-to-post.

Photographers will work with professional models from top Los Angeles modeling agencies. Throughout the workshop photographers will shoot models wearing fashion makeup and avant-garde makeup. For the post-processing segment of the workshop, I will select and retouch an actual image from the workshop. By enhancing your ability to shoot beauty you will open the doors to shooting beauty/product campaigns, beauty editorials, headshots, and for modeling agencies.

FASHION B&W: LIGHTING-CAPTURE-POST

Feel. Taylor.; D3/24-70mm f/2.8G, 1/250th, f/5.6, ISO1600.

To me one of the most fascinating aspects of photography has always been black and white photography. In my research however, seldom do the tutorials reveal the “secrets” behind B&W photography. For example, online tutorials might teach you how to use LAB for B&W conversion but they won’t explain why the technique works well for one image and totally fails on another. Through lots of frustration, research and personal experimentation I’ve developed a proven method of generating powerful B&W images.

Through the Fashion B&W: Lighting-Capture-Post workshop, we will examine the critical aspects of interpretation unique to B&W in Lighting, Capture, and Post-Processing:

-Lighting – Light setups that generate proper contrast for B&W.
-Capture – The interaction between model/photographer is paramount for conveying your B&W “message” during capture. We’ll examine both interaction and interpreting the “message”.
-Post-Processing – We will cover the digital techniques that create poignant B&W images.

MAGIC: FASHION-EDITORIAL MASTER CLASS

Erica. Couch Potato. D3/50mm. 1/200, f/1.8, ISO2000.

This workshop is modeled after the Master Class I teach for MFA photography students at the New York Film Academy.

The world is full of ordinary and forgettable images. Images that fail to capture the “human element”. Images that are incapable of creating an emotional bond with the viewer.

It’s simply not good enough to shoot an image that’s “good enough”.

So for those photographers that are tired of standard modeling agency images and want to create more emotionally-charged images, I am hosting a new 2-day Fashion-Editorial Master Class with hands-on learning (read: lots of shooting). This workshop builds off some of the basic concepts from previous workshops but really focuses on capturing unforgettable and timeless pictures; the stuff that makes great photographer and model portfolios (and not necessarily great modeling agency portfolios). These are the pictures that inspire models to book me for paid shoots.

And it means we’ll be breaking a lot of rules. Rules that bind us to shooting the same sterile boring images over and over again. Really I could have called this class “Unorthodox Photography for Capturing the Human Element” because we’re going to shoot unusual angles, with unusual lens choices, at unusual frame rates, with even more unusual camera settings…

Because it’s not as simple as model+photography+retouching=good pictures. If that were the case then everyone would be creating amazing images. But it’s not. It’s an artistic process that starts with market perception and ends with how you present the images that you create. This class builds on the basics of executing a good model test but focuses more on the nuances involved in capturing the human element. Using the typical model test as the structure for shooting, we will specifically cover: